Happy Tuesday! Hide those wallets because we’re about to discuss new book releases hitting shelves this week!
Not all of these are coming out today; some are out later in the week. Be sure to check those pub dates, just in case you’re hoping to see them on your ereader this morning.
What books are you excited for this week? Let us know in the comments!
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The Briar Club
Author: Kate Quinn
Released: July 9, 2024 by William Morrow
Genre: Historical: American, Literary Fiction, Mystery/ThrillerA haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.
Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.
Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?
New Kate Quinn!
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Bury Your Gays
Bury Your Gays is a heart-pounding new novel from USA Today bestselling author Chuck Tingle about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.
An Indie Next and LibraryReads Pick! • One of Esquire‘s Best Books of Summer 2024
“Brilliantly bloody, wildly fun, and extremely scary, Bury Your Gays brings a sledgehammer down on tired tropes and makes a masterpiece of their guts.”—RACHEL HARRISON, national bestselling author of Black Sheep
Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell.
But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, “for the algorithm,” in the upcoming season finale.Misha refuses, but he soon realizes that he’s just put a target on his back. And what’s worse, monsters from his horror movie days are stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles.
Haunted by his past, Misha must risk his entire future—before the horrors from the silver screen find a way to bury him for good.
Shana: I’m a scaredy cat, but I love Chuck Tingle enough to give this a try.
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It’s Elementary
Author: Elise Bryant
Released: July 9, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Mystery/ThrillerSarah: A contemporary mystery that’s been pitched as Abbott Elementary crossed with Only Murders in the Building, where one of the PTA moms suspects something has happened to the terrible principal.
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The Spellshop
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Released: July 9, 2024 by Bramble
Genre: Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyJoin Kiela the librarian and her assistant, Caz the sentient spider plant, as they navigate the low stakes market of illegal spellmaking and the high risk business of starting over.
Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn’t had to.
She and her assistant, Caz, a magically sentient spider plant, have spent the last eleven years sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite. But when a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz save as many books as they can carry and flee to a faraway island Kiela was sure she’d never return to: her childhood home. Kiela hopes to lay low in the overgrown and rundown cottage her late parents left her and figure out a way to survive without drawing the attention of either the empire or the revolutionaries. Much to her dismay, in addition to a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor, she finds the town neglected and in a state of disrepair.
The empire, for all its magic and power, has been neglecting for years the people who depend on magical intervention to maintain healthy livestock and crops. Not only that, but the very magic that should be helping them has been creating destructive storms that have taken a toll on the island. Due to her past role at the library, Kiela feels partially responsible for this, and now she’s determined to find a way to make things right: by opening the island’s first-ever secret spellshop.
Her plan comes with risks—the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela comes to make a place for herself among the kind and quirky townspeople of her former home, she realizes that in order to make a life for herself, she must learn to break down the walls she has built up so high.
Amanda: Look at this picturesque cover!
Sarah: Romantasy with spells, sentient spider plants, illegal spellmaking, and a gorgeous cover that I hope matches the tone of the book.
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Until Next Summer
Author: Ali Brady
Released: July 9, 2024 by Berkley
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceTwo former best friends each find love at an adults-only summer camp in this romantic and nostalgic novel that proves “once a camp person, always a camp person.”
Growing up, Jessie and Hillary lived for summer, when they’d be reunited at Camp Chickawah. The best friends vowed to become counselors together someday, but they drifted apart after Hillary broke her promise and only Jessie stuck to their plan, working her way up to become the camp director.
When Jessie learns that the camp will be sold, she decides to plan one last hurrah, inviting past campers—including Hillary—to a nostalgic “adult summer camp” before closing for good. Jessie and Hillary rebuild their friendship as they relive the best time of their lives—only now there are adult beverages, skinny dipping, and romantic entanglements. Straitlaced Hillary agrees to a “no strings attached” summer fling with the camp chef, while outgoing Jessie is drawn to a moody, reclusive writer who’s rented a cabin to work on his novel.
The friends soon realize this doesn’t have to be the last summer. They’ll team up and work together, just like the old days. But if they can’t save their beloved camp, will they be able to take the happiness of this summer away with them?
Elyse: This is set in an adult summer camp and I want to go to one SO BAD.
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Cursed Under London
Author: Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
Released: July 11, 2024 by Farrago
Genre: Historical: European, LGBTQIA, Romance, Science Fiction/FantasyThe hilarious first novel in a cosy and inclusive historical romantasy series by the writer of Horrible Histories
Two strangers.
Two Londons.
Two hearts that won’t stop beating…
In an alternative Elizabethan London, Fang awakes from his death to discover he is not quite human anymore. In fact, despite having somehow acquired the power of immortality, he’s also not quite vampire, zombie, werewolf or any of the other supernatural beings who roam the twin cities of Upper London and its underground counterpart, Deep London.
A jaded traveller from the Ming Empire, Fang is desperate to find a way to reverse the spell and get on with being dead when he stumbles upon Lazare de Quitte-Beuf, a theatrical Frenchman who is afflicted with the same mysterious condition. Thrown together by the curse they share, the two men set out to undo the strange magic that binds them. As they are drawn further into the shadowy world of Deep London, they unearth a dangerous plot which they appear to be right in the middle of…
And, surely, when in grave danger, the worst thing they could do would be to fall in love, wouldn’t it?
Sarah: Seriously, I came to a full and complete stop when I read “A cosy rom-com set in a fantasy version of Elizabethan London by the writer of Horrible Histories.“
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Perfectly Candid
Author: J.S. Jasper
Released: July 15, 2024
Genre: Contemporary Romance, RomanceAliyah Giorgia Juliet Panimiro was never meant to be Queen. It’s not in her blood. Yet, when she turned sixteen, the duty to wear the crown was thrust upon her. Now, she spends her time alone, dreaming of a day she won’t have to attend balls with the dreaded goal of finding a husband.
Aliyah must marry before her family disowns her, but is it too much to ask to fall in love first?
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Elliot despises the royal family and everything they stand for. So, he’s not quite sure how he ended up working for them this summer. There’s nothing he wants from Galinera Castle apart from a glowing recommendation and to make his mom proud for once. He has no intention of leaving with anything else.
And then he meets a girl under the plum tree, and he wonders how bad it would be if, just this once, he talked to her…
Shana: I keep hearing about this book!
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I have two books on my tbr this week:
THEIR WICKED WAYS (July 10) is the sixth book in Willow Dixon’s Crimson Club series of m/m romances. This one is a little different, being an m/m/m romance between a man experiencing bi-awakening and the established couple who invite him to join them.
DEARLY DEPARTED (July 11) by Amelia Wilde is the second book in her series about a couple who are in a fake relationship. The previous book, DEARLY BELOVED, ended on a cliffhanger, and DEARLY DEPARTED picks up right where that left off, with the couple being pursued by someone bent on revenge.
Really looking forward to PLAY ALONG by Liz Tomford. Fourth in a really strong series of M/F sports romances. First two were esp strong. Out Thursday.
I put Cursed Under London on my wishlist so fast …
The Next Best Fling by Gariella Gamez. It’s a debut with a curvy librarian! Love the cover.
All on my TBR
THE SPELLSHOP’s small-scale story amidst larger background events and the details of it intrigue me (and the sentient spider plant sounds fun), but the cozy elements sound maybe too standard for what I want out of that story, at odds with the rest. I may check it out.